An Orthodontist Goes Out to Lunch
A personal essay from class and some memories from childhood.
I had nice teeth in the third grade because I had braces in the second. “Normally,” Dr. Orthodontist said, “We wouldn’t put them on someone so young, but in this case I think we’ll try it.” Eight-year-olds don’t really understand the nuance of the phrase “we’ll try it.” They should, however, get nervous when Dr. Orthodontist says: “Now, they don’t actually make wires for such small mouths, but we should be able to cut this one to size.”
I love that little kids wish for glasses, or casts, or braces. The older kids make them look so cool. It’s truly disappointing when we become the older kids and these bone-moving and sight-assisting devices don’t turn out to be that fun.
I was wearing highlighter-pink shoes and a blue polka dot shirt, so obviously, I picked out alternating electric green and purple rubber bands to complete the look.
My face contorted as the hygienist began to cement metal brackets to my freshly grown in “adult” teeth. “Open your mouth wider, honey,” she had to keep repeating. The hygienist stepped back from her handiwork and gave me a mirror– I ran my tongue over the rough surface of the braces. I think I tried to smile. I think it looked painful.
One of the few benefits of being a “trooper” and not complaining during the installation of braces meant for a person twice my age, and because we were near the mall, I got to choose where we went to lunch. I chose Friendly’s– mac and cheese and one of those scary ice-cream sundaes with a cone hat and the M&M eyes would surely make me feel better.
I never got my ice cream. Halfway through my mac and cheese I felt the catching of a thin wire in the innocent, fragile, lining of the inside of my mouth, and the tearing as the cement of the last bracket on the left side popped away from my tooth. The structural damage was met with the taste of pain: copper and salt. I became a fish on a hook, wiggling, and gasping as the metal burrowed deeper into my cheek.
Meanwhile, it was Out-to-Lunch Day for the staff of Duthie Orthodontics! When the green digital clock on the reception desk clicked to 11:45 everyone reached for their coats and turned off the lights. Braces seemed much less cool as I sat with my back against the locked office door, holding a blood-speckled tissue to my mouth.
“Can I help you?” asked a confused hygienist an hour later. She’d missed staff lunch. Lucky, I guess. The grid of examination cubicles was dark except for a lone operator light illuminating a single chair near the middle. The only reason I climbed back in was to stop the bleeding. “I’m sorry I can’t cut down the wire any further.” The hygienist said to my mother as we left. That evening we recounted our day to the others over spaghetti. There is not much mastication involved in the digestion of pasta, yet I cut the noodles to the size of grains of rice and placed them softly in my mouth one at a time.
I went to school the next day with a survival story, giddy to tell my friends and show my teacher. I wasn’t aware that for the next nine months I would often have to pull on the back of my cheeks and shift the wire out of the holes they were intent on digging. I passed the teenage years listening to my peers complaining about their own metal mouths. I’d reply with my unusually adult-smile, “Don’t worry! It gets better.” But my tongue still knows exactly where to find the scars.
Written by me, Lucy Ouckama for New York University London’s Writing As Critical Inquiry: Urban Encounters course, 29 January 2025.